Germany is ready to ask the European Union for an urgent revision of the regulation that establishes a ban on combustion engines set for 2035. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to urge the community institutions to review the deadline which would force the entire automotive sector to make a move towards electric conversion.
Merz: “We are sending the right signal”
The German Chancellor is ready to send a letter to the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. The goal? Invite European institutions to keep technological options open for car manufacturers. Merz’s initiative tends to sharpen the tone of the conflict between the German automotive industry and those who ask to stick to the policies imagined to reach the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. The idea would be to allow manufacturers to at least sell hybrid models. In Germany the sector is in crisis, grappling with the rising costs of investing in electric vehicles and strong Chinese competition which is affecting sales.
Stop combustion engines from 2035, can the ban be revoked?
“With this letter we are sending the right signal to the Commission,” said Merz, explaining how the German government wants to protect the climate but “in a technologically neutral way”. The Chancellor summarized the main requests he intends to bring to the attention of von der Leyen: “I will ask the Commission to continue to allow, even after 2035, battery electric vehicles also equipped with a combustion engine. It is much more appropriate and pragmatic to invest greater efforts and resources in the development of efficient hybrid systems that combine the best of the world of internal combustion engines on the one hand and electric mobility on the other.”
The crisis of the sector
There’s a bad mood in the automotive sector in Germany. The recent data published by the Federal Statistics Office also bears witness to this: at the end of the third quarter of 2025, employees working in the automotive world fell by 48,700 units compared to the same period in 2024. In percentage terms, the drop was 6.3 percent. In total at the end of September the sector had 721,400 workers, the lowest figure since 2011 when there were around 718 thousand.
Incidentally, the data also includes companies that deal with components. For comparison, 5.43 million people are employed in the manufacturing sector and in the same period the workforce fell by 2.2 percent. There are various reasons that explain the automotive crisis. From the difficulties of German brands on the Chinese market to the duties imposed by Donald Trump, through to the high costs of energy and the transition to electric which is struggling to take off.
